


is there any foreign war

by halogens



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Mental Illness, fist bump if you can catch the snk reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halogens/pseuds/halogens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	is there any foreign war

It didn’t click, the first time.

He asks Sirius for a summary of the last ten minutes, choosing to ignore the itching feeling in his belly. Sirius looks at him oddly before acquiescing, breathing huskily about possible mole and keeping the information more tightly knit into Remus’s ear. Remus quickly mutters out a thank you in response. He scarcely ever zoned out at Hogwarts, other than right before or after the moon. This event, in and of itself, is a rarity.

After, Sirius confronts him in the doorway, as he’s swinging his threadbare coat over his shoulders. Given to him in sixth year (from the other three, who else), the sleeves are pulling around his wrists now, too short and awkward for his, if possible, ganglier limbs. But he can’t afford to buy another one, and his dignity can’t afford having the others purchase him a new one either. If he is careful with his patchwork, the coat should last him six more months, at the least.

When Sirius speaks, there is quiet worry coloring his words. “Uh, Remus. I wanted to talk to you, about today. Are you feeling okay? I know that the next moon isn’t for another two weeks, so I was wondering whether anything’s up? Have you been feeling hot or sickly or anything?” He cuts himself off abruptly, flushing rosy red from his hairline down to somewhere under the collar of his shirt. “Sorry,” he starts again, “I digress.”

Remus ducks his head and smiles; Blacks, disowned or no, do not ramble. “Padfoot,” Remus begins; Sirius grins, wild and rampant. “I’m fine. Really.”

Sirius seems unconvinced, but says instead, “Whatever you say, Moony. Take care of yourself, huh?” and pokes at Remus’s ribs, raising an eyebrow as if to ask, “If I go to your flat, will there be food in the refrigerator? Or tea in the kettle?”

Remus scoffs gently and brushes Sirius’s hand away. “I’m fine,” he asserts again, but Sirius just looks him in the eyes and snorts like there’s some unspoken secret.

“Yes,” Sirius says as he slides the scarf around his neck off. In turn, he slings it around Remus’s neck, a forced casual motion that it becomes anything but. “Of course you are.” Surprised, Remus suddenly finds himself within kissing distance of Sirius. Remus does not want to know whether the rough touch of his fingers on his skin was purposeful or an accident.

And then Sirius disappears, with a crack! of apparition and Remus realizes that he’s left his scarf dangling around Remus’s neck.

 _He was always good at this_ , Remus thinks.  
-  
The second time it happens they’re in Godric’s Hollow. Dumbledore has assigned James and Lily and extended mission despite protests.

“Are you sure about this?” Peter asks. He doesn’t want to outright argue, but it’s on everybody’s mind.

“They have Harry,” Sirius says desperately.

Dumbledore is not often speechless, but he is quiet when he says, “Everybody has somebody, Sirius.”

Remus doesn’t say anything.

It’s unsettling, sitting down for tea and not remembering how he got here. When Sirius walks back into the room with Harry settled on one hip, he asks, “Where are James and Lily?”

Sirius stares at him and says, “They just left for a mission. Don’t you remember?”

No, no I don’t. Remus raises an eyebrow and remarks about how his old age must be getting to him. Sirius punches him in the arm; they laugh if off awkwardly, like the punch line to a joke that falls flat, and then Harry throws up on Sirius’s shoulder and that’s the end of that.  
  
-  
  
It happens again. And again.  
  
-  
  
They are in Knockturn Alley and he can’t remember why. He doesn’t why he has a wand pressed to the jugular of a stranger. Stunned, he releases him and watches as he runs away with ragged hair and wild eyes. His jeering howls float down the alleyway and reverberate off the walls. Suddenly, five members of the Order apparate in, asking, “Did you get him?” “Was he here?” “Are you okay?”  
  
“No,” Remus murmurs. It’s the answer to all three questions.  
  
-  
  
They are in a bar, all four of them, and it feels like it has been forever since they’ve done this. The four of them are buzzed at the most, not being able to afford getting head over heels tipsy like they would’ve when the war is looming right over their head. The counter is sticky, and the air is hot and heavy with smoke and Remus clenches his hand around the cup, because since when did they live this way? Solemn and deathly quiet.  
  
Remus is suddenly bitter. He doesn’t want his memories of the Marauders, The Troublemakers, The Four of Them, to be tainted by this. They are all tired and holding in sighs because kids they knew in Hogwarts are dropping like flies around them. Remus is so very, very tired.  
  
James excuses himself to go home, saying, “Lily will be worried,” and they all know it’s the other way around. Peter takes that as a signal for him to go also and makes it out the door before either Sirius or Remus get the chance to say goodbye. Soon, it’s only Sirius and him sitting at the bar and a lot of something between them.  
  
Sirius doesn’t say anything but just turns toward him and smirks. When Sirius kisses him, all hard teeth and stinging bites at his lips, Remus doesn’t say something, just presses him back against the counter and doesn’t protest when Sirius breathes, “Let’s get out of here,” into his mouth.  
  
-  
  
It keeps happening.  
  
-  
  
Sirius is over and lounging on the dining room table, shirtless, pants slung low, and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He asks Remus whether he’s eaten that day and when Remus is silent, he takes it to mean that he hasn’t simply because he’s forgotten so he makes it his duty to pull out the pan and begin frying up eggs. Truth is, Remus really didn’t know.  
  
Sirius is over and the rays from the rising sun casts gold on the sheets and darkness on everything else. Remus jerks awake and asks what day it is.  
  
Sirius is over and watching him oddly as he moves around the apartment like a ghost out of place.  
  
Sirius is over and asking him where he’s been what he’s been doing what he’s been thinking, why are you keeping secrets from me?  
  
Sirius is over and angrily tearing his clothes down from inside the closet and punching the wall instead of Remus.  
  
Sirius doesn’t come over anymore. And Remus wonders when trust became so easily disposable.  
  
When he realizes, he begins making lists. (But not actually when he realizes, when he finally accepts it. Remus has always been good at lying to everybody, but most of the time, himself.) He writes, “Your name is Remus John Lupin. You are 21 years old and your birthday is March 10, 1960,” on yellowed paper and tapes it to the dresser in his bedroom. He doesn’t have to worry about anyone finding them.  
  
On more pages are, “Your friends call you Moony at times. They are Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and Lily Potter. You work for an organization against dark forces called the Order of the Phoenix.” Attached are pictures of them, members of the Order, neatly labeled with the name underneath.  
  
He knows he won’t need them for a long time but he prepares them now, so he won’t have to think of the day that he won’t be able to anymore.  
  
On different pages, he’s written things he’s probably going to forget, has already begun forgetting, like the plotline of his favorite book and how much sugar he takes in his tea and pranks they did at Hogwarts and the night of his turning, which he didn’t mind forgetting, just not like this.  
  
But mostly, it’s not this that bothers him. It’ll be okay if he looks in a mirror and doesn’t recognize himself. He doesn’t want to look at the faces of his closest friends and forget how to read what they’re thinking. He wants to remember every quirk of the way they move, the way James swayed when he was desperately, hopelessly in love and the nervous tittering of Peter before an exam and Sirius’s grin when he pulled one over on McGonagall.  
  
He can’t put these into words though, so he ends up taping the portraits of them on his fridge and around his walls and even on the sides of his television and Remus feels like a man drowning on words and smoke and something that isn’t even there or a combination of the three. More often than not, he’s wondering if he’s losing his mind.  
  
-  
  
At meetings, Sirius won’t look him in the eyes anymore and Remus is surprised that he’s kept this show going for so long already.  
  
Remus can’t bear to tell anyone, because he’s sure they would put him out of commission for sure, and that’s not what the Order needs from him right now. He’d rather they’d have a man losing his memory rather than be a man down.  
  
Fortunately, he’s only been given research recently and can go back and read over his notes from before if he forgets while he’s on assignment. Of course, Remus’s luck can only last so long.  
Sirius and Remus are partnered together because the schedule is jam-packed already and nobody is left free but them. Sirius is quietly fuming while Remus doesn’t say a word and it’s on pure luck that he lasts a couple days without forgetting.  
  
It’s not until near the end of the battle that it happens again. Looking around at the scene, he figures out what’s happened but then sees Sirius about 20 feet away, and for a second, he can’t stop himself from hoping.  
  
Then Sirius is leering at him apprehensively and the glare is like a drain because Remus deflates and presses his palms into his eyes until he can see spots and stars. He asks Sirius where they’re heading next without bothering to change his colorless tone because he’s so fucking sick of this dance where they’re trying not to step on each other’s feet, and the abruptness at which Sirius snaps at him makes him wince.  
  
“Shouldn’t you know? Dumbledore gave you the same details as me!” Sirius roars and with the final word, he’s gone.  
  
-  
  
With nowhere to go and no idea of what to do, Remus goes home and gets himself blasted. He drinks the little alcohol he has in his house, half the wine bottle left over from the New Year and some dusty almost empty bottles of whiskey he finds all the way in the back of his cabinet, behind the tea tins and honey.  
  
Then he heads to a seedy pub he’s never seen before and spends all of what was in his wallet on buying drinks he’s never heard of from the gruff bartender. Maybe, he thinks, my liver will give up. The irony of living through a war and dying at the hands of too many shots at the bar.  
  
He can’t risk apparating home and splinching himself in the process so ends up stumbling back to his flat at some time near sunrise and shoving through the door after floundering not only with the magical charms but the muggle key too.  
  
He finds Sirius reading one of the notes he’s left himself, curling his fingers into white knuckled fists at his side. He sees now, in retrospect, how it looks. Papers on papers on papers, some in neat steady handwriting, and others in almost illegible script, written when he lurches awake in the middle of the night with a random memory that he won’t be able to recall in the days to come.  
There are tea stained stacks of paper on the coffee table in the living room and tiny words written in the margins of the Daily Prophet that say things like, “When you were 14, you had spiked chocolate cake for your birthday because Sirius Black is a bad friend.”  
  
When Sirius opens his mouth, Remus expects to hear livid anger. Mostly though, Sirius just sounds tired and only partially here, but the words are still wrong.  
“What’s wrong with you?”  
  
Remus barks, brutal and remorseless. “You’re in for a long list there, Black.”  
  
“You know what I mean, Remus!” he shouts and if Remus was sober he would tell Sirius to calm down. “What,” he gestures despondently to the notes littering Remus’s walls, “what is this? Why are you writing these things?” He laughs, desperate like Remus. “Tell me you’ve been secretly writing your autobiography or something.”  
  
Remus is wishing that things weren’t so ephemeral, moments so fleeting, because if he knew it would turn out this way he would have tried harder.  
  
“What do you mean, Sirius? Why is this happening? Or why I didn’t tell you? Maybe you even mean, why are our friends dying? Sorry to tell you, I only know the answer to one of those questions and I don’t think it’s the one you want to know.” He presses his nails into his palm. The pain is grounding. It is one of the only things keeping him here.  
  
Sirius makes a sound like a whimper and takes a step toward him. Remus takes three steps back, until his back is pressed to the door.  
  
“Go home,” he mutters, looking past Sirius’s shoulder to the streaks of burning orange and gold and pinks and periwinkles through the window. This world is cruel, but also very beautiful, he thinks, and then tells himself that he’s being overly philosophical.  
  
“And where is that, Remus?” Sirius responds, after what feels like a lifetime.  
  
And then Remus is a deck of cards spread too far and too thin, shuffled and moved around and manipulated by whatever it is that has control of him. He’s exhausted and feeling like he’s about to give out.  
  
“Here,” Remus says quietly, like a benediction. “Your home is here.”  
  
There’s no response for a minute, and then Remus hears Sirius closing the distance between them and tucking Remus’s head into his space between his neck and his collarbone and this time he doesn’t try to pull away. His shoulders are pressed to the hard wood of the door but Sirius is warm and alive and threading his fingers through Remus’s hair and Remus starts to cry because he can feel Sirius’s pulse beat under his hot skin and he’s pretty sure his heart stopped a long time ago.  
  
-  
  
Later, when they’re lying in bed, because it’s been months since Remus has gotten a real night’s sleep, Sirius asks the question hesitantly, “Why didn’t you tell us?”  
  
Remus is painfully aware of how familiar this scene is, the last time Sirius asked, “Why didn’t you tell us,” like it was a personal betrayal. Remus says nothing, but Sirius doesn’t press either, so Remus is sure he understands.  
  
Slowly, he starts speaking, like through a mouthful of molasses. “I don’t want your pity, Sirius, or James’s or Peter’s or Lily’s, anybody’s. But,” he falters, “I don’t want to be useless.”  
Sirius is quick to contradict him, reassure him that he can still help, and somehow Remus still feels surrounded and out of plays to make.  
  
“You know that’s not true, Padfoot. You’ve already seen me on a mission,” Sirius flinches, “I’m doing nothing but hindering you.” There’s nothing that Sirius says to that, because it’s true and Sirius never says things that he doesn’t mean, so he just clutches at Remus’s sweaty fingers under the cover and curls closer around Remus’s body like a parenthesis. (For words that can’t be spoken here and now.)  
  
Sirius kisses up and down the nape of his neck and into his hair even though he reeks of alcohol and mumbles _youreokayyoureokayyoureokayyoureokayoureokayoureokay_ in a voice so fervent Remus feels like it could be true.  
  
Remus rolls over and faces Sirius with glassy eyes. He presses his lips to Sirius’s and whispers, “Yeah, I’m okay.”  
  
-  
  
It’s sunny and warm and the sky is cloudless and Remus hasn’t felt this happy in years. He thinks he could sing a song or frolic in the fields full of daisies, but he just smiles at the waitress and orders a cup of tea and tells her to bring the sugar too, because they never add enough but he doesn’t mind.  
  
He sits down at one of the tables outside and pulls a book worn at the corners from his satchel and sits down to read. He feels like he’s read it before because he can tell you the plotline from front to back but he never remembers the characters, and they’re really what make the book worth reading, he thinks.  
  
A man with shaggy black hair and a chirpy grin whistles to him as he’s walking down the street and then jogs up to pull out the chair across from Remus, like he’s afraid of somebody beating him to the chase. He doesn’t bother asking when he steals the book right out of Remus’s hands and smirks, “Again, Remus?”  
  
Remus huffs a laugh and says, “Always, Sirius.”

The song remains the same.

**Author's Note:**

> woah woah!! okay dudes this is the first fic i've written ever and if you made it to the end, congrats!!!! also thank you for suffering through this fic for my pride you make me happy (◕ω◕✿) [[[HAHA I BET YOU THOUGHT IT WAS GONNA END SAD HAHAHAHAHAH it almost did lmao send help]]] talk rlsb to me [[http://thylaas.tumblr.com/]]


End file.
